• Hazing Deaths Database:
  • Blog
  • Storytelling
  • Bio
  • High School Sexual Hazing Incidents
  • Campus Speaker: Hazing & Binge Drinking
  • Hank Nuwer: selected media coverage
  • World Hazing Incidents
  • “Hazing,” “Sons of the Dawn,” “Legend of Jesse Owens”

Hank Nuwer's Hazing Scholarship Site

Follow me on Social Media

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Orlando Sentinel columnist Beth Kassab asks a hard question: Do these hazing deaths get repeated forever and ever, amen?

September 23, 2012 By Hank Nuwer Leave a Comment

Excerpt:

Months or years go by, and another student drowns, overdoses or is savagely beaten. And we repeat ourselves all over again.

Remember Chad Meredith?

The 18-year-old pledge at (Miami) drowned in 2001 after fraternity brothers told him to try to swim across Lake Osceola on the UM campus. Meredith had been drinking. It was cold. And he never made it.

His death inspired state legislators to pass in 2005 the toughest hazing law in the country. Hazing convictions suddenly carried the potential of prison time.

“There is an incredible arrogance with these fraternity guys,” David Bianchi, the attorney who represented the Meredith family, told the Sentinel in 2005. “If they find out that the law in Florida has changed, they will not want to subject themselves to a felony. Going to jail — that will stop them.”

If only it were that easy.

“We thought that at the time,” Bianchi told me last week. “Yet these incidents continue … I think it’s worse today than ever.”

Since Meredith died, more than 30 other people have also died in hazing or pledging-related incidents across the country, though Champion’s is the only death in Florida.

The tough new law in 2005 was accompanied by tough talk. Consider this Democrat article that year about hazing, which reported: “Florida A&M University will declare an assault on hazing this fall, and students will be expected to attend seminars on the subject twice a year.”

That was in reaction to a band member paddled so hard he had kidney failure.

Last week, in response to Champion’s death, FAMU suspended classes to hold a meeting on hazing for students. The same day, a congresswoman proposed denying federal financial aid to students who haze.

And so the scenes play out again.

Filed Under: Hazing News

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Inquiries

Hank Nuwer

Correspondence: Hank Nuwer at Hnuwer@hanknuwer.com   Phone number upon request.  Available presentations USA, … Email to book a date.

Sons of the Dawn

Sons of the Dawn: A Basque Odyssey: Hank's novel is for teens 11-18 but also meant to be enjoyed by … Read More

Hazing Deaths Database:

… Read More

Suicide allegedly tied to hazing at Nebraska-Lincoln

Here is the link. Rahat Jalil, UNL Lambda Phi Epsilon

Thank you, AFA

New scholarship from Brazil: Hazing at the university and gender violence: a literature integrative review

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7213/psicolargum.39.103.AO02 Trotes na universidade e violência de gênero: uma revisão integrativa de literatura Hazing at the university and gender violence: a literature integrative review   Novatadas en la universidad y violencia de género: una revisión integradora de la literatura Adriane Roso https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7471-133X Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), adriane.roso@ufsm.br Janine Gudolle de Souza https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6477-4190 […]

A Poland-Union City Love story.

Here is the link. Hank   My wife Gosia earned her Green Card in October 2019. She gave eight-weeks’ notice at her chief accountant job in Poland and shipped what she could to Indiana. “Wait, how did a fellow from Indiana meet a Polish lass,” you may ask? I persuaded Gosia in June of 2015 […]

Archives


Hank Nuwer's Hazing Scholarship Site is proudly powered by WordPress